


Sparks of Fire (Falling From The Chandelier)

by AuroraKant



Series: Winter Whumperland [6]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Take On The Circus Burning Down, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fire, Gen, Haly's Circus (DCU), Hospital, Hurt Dick Grayson, Permanent Injury, Sadness, This Takes Place Early In The Blockbuster Arc, non graphic injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:20:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28410813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuroraKant/pseuds/AuroraKant
Summary: The fire was all consuming.Red was closing in on all sides, the air so putrid Dick was choking on it. The flickering flames created horrible mirror images in the smoke, people were screaming… and Dick was falling apart.Or: Dick is at Haly's Circus when Firefly attacks and burns it all down - this time he loses more than just his family home.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Amy Rohrbach, Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne
Series: Winter Whumperland [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2053023
Comments: 22
Kudos: 84





	Sparks of Fire (Falling From The Chandelier)

**Author's Note:**

> Hello my dear friends!!!  
> I am writing, writing, writing.....  
> (to be honest tho... I have been working on this for ages and today I finally forced myself to write the ending)  
> Thanks so much to [neptance](https://archiveofourown.org/users/neptance) for beta reading!! <3

The fire was all consuming.

Red was closing in on all sides, the air so putrid Dick was choking on it. The flickering flames created horrible mirror images in the smoke, people were screaming… and Dick was falling apart.

He had to get to Haly! He had to reach the Raya and Babs and… he had to save them!

But it was hard to discern up from down, impossible to tell left from right, in this world made of smoke. Dick stumbled over a fallen piece of wood, and when he looked down it was a person, crying in pain. He had… Dick offered his hands and his compassion, pulling the person up until they could see eye to eye.

He had to…

“I will get you outside! You just have to-“ A cough tore itself from his throat, making it impossible to talk. Smoke inhalation. Soon, Dick would have to start to worry about himself… soon, his lungs would force him to his knees in their search for oxygen.

If it were Nightwing stumbling through burning Velcro and screams of terror, everything would be alright. He would have a rebreather and a uniform protecting his fragile heart… but he was just Dick Grayson. And Dick Grayson had just watched his childhood go up in flames.

His grasp was tight on the stranger’s wrist. Dick didn’t stop. Not when the person following him stumbled. Not when Dick was almost forced to let them go. Dick couldn’t stop – they would die, should Dick fail to continue in his search for air.

A triangle of light appeared through the smoke, the black and red hues easing their oppressing denseness in front of them. Dick pulled and stumbled and ached… and he broke free, the person he had tried to save crumbling on the grass in front of the circus tent.

The senseless screaming of people in distress, undercut by crackling fire and breaking equipment, got replaced by faint sirens… and so much crying, yelling, and pain. People were running over the fairgrounds, bottles and canisters full of water in their arms. They were doing their best – but Dick could see Firefly's outline in the sky… and he knew, their attempts were futile.

His chest ached from all the smoke he had inhaled, his eyes a burning and watering mess.

But he couldn’t stop… It was hard to see anything with clarity, and yet Dick tried to scan the masses around him for familiar faces. He couldn’t spot Babs. He couldn’t see Raya. He had no idea where Haly was…

Should he-?

Another cough tore itself free, and Dick doubled over, the pressure on his chest too much. Smoke poured from his lips in the form of blackened mucus, tears painting streaks through the ash covering his face. He couldn’t go back inside. He wasn’t… But what else was Dick supposed to do?

He couldn’t just wait for the fire department to show up. He couldn’t just stand by while his loved ones were in danger. He couldn’t do nothing while the world burned.

Batman hadn't raised a quitter.

In the end it wasn’t Dick himself, who made the choice. It was Zitka.

Her distressed call made Dick perk up from his hunched over position. He knew the voice of his childhood best friend better than he remembered the voices of his parents when they sang him to bed. Zitka was in danger – and Dick wasn’t strong enough to lose anything else today.

Faintly Dick could hear the police arrive, but it was too late for him to wait for them. Instead, Dick pushed himself up, ignoring the sway of the world around him, and started running. Straight into the flames. Straight into what was left of Haly’s Circus.

In the short amount of time, Dick had been gone, the rest of the circus tent had filled with even more smoke, the air unbreathable, the space dark and glowing like the entrance to hell. It would be impossible to walk through the carnage, so Dick didn’t even try.

He got down on his hands and knees and started crawling, following the soft echo of Zitka’s panicked cries. It was… horror. There were no other words to describe it – Dick was left speechless in the face of the destruction his hands and eyes found.

Breaths came in shorts gasps, the smoke thick even this close to the ground. He could see barely anything at all, which made it so much worse. Because not seeing the path he took, meant that it was a surprise when he accidentally touched a body, when he stumbled over what was left of a person he might have known.

Adrenaline propelled him forward and terror made him cry.

Each person he found filled him with dread. What if it was Babs? What if it was Raya? What if it was a member of his family? One of the few people Dick had left?

And even as each of them proved to be a nameless civilian, Dick could feel himself get lost in the pain. People were dying. His childhood was burning. And he was lost.

His hands hurt – Why? Was it the dirt of the floor digging itself in the soft flesh? Was it the heat? Was it Dick’s heart begging him to stop?

It didn’t matter. It couldn’t matter.

Dick had to save Zitka. He had to find Babs and the others. He had… if he couldn’t save them… what part of him would be left? Babs was his new life, his hero identity, his heart. Zitka was his childhood, his parents, his best friend growing up. And Raya? She was the now, the heritage Dick rarely claimed, the connection he so desperately craved.

If all three of these disappeared – going up in smoke together with the remains of the circus tent of days past – what would be left?

The world would lose so much – and Dick would never recover.

Dick continued his search.

He continued even as it got harder and harder to breathe. He continued even as the smoke filled his entire field of vision, and the heat tore at his clothes. He continued when his body swayed and the world tilted.

He needed to see them.

He was begging the world to let him save his loved ones.

Everything was covered in a hazy hue by the time Dick was forced to admit that he could no longer resume his search. His arms were heavy and numb, his lips dry. He was… heaving, a steel band covering his chest, a giant fist choking him.

He was… looking around, the tent was grey and red and acidic. The fire made it impossible to see, the desperation made it hard to orientate himself. Dick was in the middle of the ring, the place Zitka had been shortly before Firefly started his attack.

But now… the elephant wasn’t here anymore. Dick was alone in the center of destruction. Even the cries for help had stopped. It was eerily silent – or maybe Dick was just too far gone to hear anything anymore.

Maybe he was just…

_ Falling _ .

Something solid caught him, but Dick was no longer awake enough to see who it was. In his head, it was his mother calling his name, in his head it was his family’s hands pulling him up, up, up towards the trapeze.

He was home.

The world was burning.

Everything was fuzzy when Dick woke up again.

White walls greeted him. White walls and a strong smell of antiseptic combined with smoke. But maybe it was Dick who stank of smoke, maybe it was Dick who was still haunted by fire.

He could vaguely recall what had happened, flames dancing across his vision every time he blinked. The world was weirdly distant, the crisp hospital sheets rough underneath his arms. Dick felt… numb.

He had just watched his childhood home burn down, and his heart was silent, his mind a wasteland. It wasn’t just his mind, however, that refused to engage with the world – his body was just as heavy and numb. A piece of flesh lying, waiting, a human left to suffer alone.

Did the others make it? Did they survive?

A sudden burst of adrenaline jumpstarted Dick’s brain and made him struggle and fight against the lethargy. He didn’t get very far, a shrill beeping piercing his tender brain. His eyes flew through the room, until they spotted the monitor connected to his chest. There were other things as well, but only now did Dick realize that there was something else obscuring his view besides his tired eyes. An oxygen mask. A big, clunky piece of sheer plastic covering the lower half of his face.

It made sense.

There was ash coating his tongue, pressure crushing his lungs… it made sense that the fire had touched him, that the smoke had hurt him. Some part of Dick had simply assumed that the crushing weight he was feeling came from the horrendous day he had been forced to survive. But, no, of course not. That would be too easy, wouldn’t it?

Tears were seeping from his eyes, and Dick was unsure which injury had caused them. His heart, his mind, or his body? All three seemed to be unable to cope.

The door to the hospital room got pushed open, and through it stepped… two people Dick hadn’t thought he would see. Especially together in the same room. Amy was wearing her patrol uniform, the blue a stark contrast to the pallid color of her skin. Meanwhile Bruce was dressed to the nines – a suit that spoke of Wayne Enterprises and told Dick everything he needed to know.

They both radiated worry.

They both looked old beyond their years.

Dick had talked to Amy only yesterday, when she’d wished him a nice day at the circus, and Bruce… Dick wasn’t exactly sure when the last time the two of them had talked. Maybe a month? Maybe two?

And while his heart loved both of them, his mind knew it would be a bad idea to force them to coexist in one room. They were anti-thesis of each other, after all. Bruce was the Bat, the dark, the safety net Gotham’s that caught you when everything else failed. Amy was Blüdhaven, a bit rough, but mostly warm, sometimes harsh, but always a survivor.

They weren’t the people Dick wanted to see. He needed to see Babs and Haly and Raya. He had to ensure what was left of his life was safe. Was whole. Was okay.

Dick didn’t greet them when they came to a stop next to his bed. His throat hurt too badly for that. Instead, he tried to raise a single eyebrow – but the drugs made his face numb, and his coordination hazy. Bruce seemed to understand anyway, his hand cautious when it came to rest on top of Dick’s head – Amy seeing something in his eyes as well, her mouth turning at the corners, until she offered him a timid smile.

“Hi, Rookie… I clearly remember telling you to stay out of hospitals for a while…”

Bruce shot Amy a look that promised nothing good, but Dick felt comforted by her surprisingly deep voice and the love in her words. But, of course, that warmth couldn’t stay – Dick was being eaten alive by worry and Bruce had never been a patient person.

“It is go- I- Hello, Dick. I hope you are feeling alright?”

Well, talk about awkward hospital greetings.

But even then, Dick could feel the concern hidden in his guardian’s heart. Bruce was bad with words – and sometimes Dick was unable to forgive that, and other times he loved Bruce even more for it.

He wouldn’t be able to talk, his voice a victim of smoke and fire, but Dick couldn’t let that stop him. Not when Babs could be in danger. Not when Haly could be dead. Not when he had just lost so much of his identity, Nightwing felt like the only part of his soul that still persisted.

His lips cracked when he mouthed “What-? How is Barbara? Haly? Raya? Zitka? Is everyone alright?”.

Dick knew he wasn’t imagining the smile in Bruce’s eyes, or the sigh coming from Amy. Both of them had understood him, both of him knew him well enough to read his lips – even if Bruce would only ever understand Robin, and Amy was only allowed to know Dick Grayson.

“Zitka?” Amy asked.

It was Bruce that answered, something complicated hidden underneath the false cheer. Probably envy. Probably the knowledge that Amy was here as well – because Dick wanted her to be.

“The elephant. She is Dick’s friend of childhood days. She… She is the one who saved you, Dick. You were in real danger, the fire closing in around you and… she escaped her handlers, returned to the fire, and pulled you out of it.”

So, he owed Zitka his life. That was nothing new, and yet it weighed on his soul. Dick was too tired to tell if it was a bad weight – or a comforting one.

“She okay?” Dick mouthed again.

“Besides a couple of superficial burns, Zitka escaped the fire without problem.”

“The others are alright as well. Your girlfriend is being treated for a burn on her leg she didn’t notice, Raya and Haly are in shock… but all of them are expected to make full recovery.”

Amy had seamlessly taken the reign from Bruce, her voice less burdened by the guilt men like Bruce carried everywhere. Dick hated that he could feel his own soul suffer under the same guilt he had watched for years almost destroy Bruce. He hated the knowledge that if he wasn’t careful… he would turn into a man like Bruce.

Even now, as relief flooded his veins, as drowsiness made him blink slowly, he could feel the guilt fray his thoughts. The burns were his fault. The shock, a byproduct of something Dick had been unable to prevent. Guilt and sorrow were familiar emotions, their heaviness almost a security blanket to Dick’s… mediocre mental state.

“And everyone else?”

It was again Amy, who answered him:

“As far as we can say as of now, nobody died in the fire. But… forty people had to be hospitalized for smoke inhalation, and another twenty-three were brought in to treat their burns. All of them will recover… the property damage, however…”

“It isn’t the circus we should be focusing on right now. That is something for a later day, when everyone recovered – right now, you should worry about yourself, Dick.”

Concern had always been an emotion that made Bruce appear harsh, and gave his words an edge… and yet even his horrible manners – and Alfred would tut and shout should he be informed of Bruce’s impolite behavior – couldn’t hide just how worried the man was.

Something was wrong.

Dick should have known the moment not one, but two, of his emergency contacts stepped through the door.

Something was wrong.

And since Babs, Raya, Haly and the other circus folk had survived… it had to be him.

Maybe there was a reason he was so numb. Maybe it wasn’t just the shock.

“What happened?”

His voice was a mess, a pitiful croak and a painful cough, and yet he knew that they had both understood him just fine. He could see it in the way her smile bled from Amy’s face, and the frown on Bruce’s way too big forehead.

This time, the two of them didn’t fight for dominance, didn’t steal each other’s words. Silence reigned over the hospital room, its presence so strong, Dick could almost see it. The first one to crack was Amy, eyes downcast, lines that betrayed her age stark on her face:

“You have… Rookie… Dick… when the elephant saved you, you already had some extensive burns. Most of them are… superficial, but your hands and arms…”

Dick… Dick didn’t understand. Amy’s words reached him through a sea of water, each syllable lost in the static filling his ears. What? What did she mean by that? What was she saying?

“Dick. Dick! Look at me!”

Automatically Dick’s gaze snapped towards Bruce, the man more Batman now than Bruce. Dick had always been better – and worse – at listening to orders Batman spit, than he was at following Bruce’s soft dad voice.

“Good job, chum. What… What Sargent Rohrbach was trying to say… The doctors were forced to use skin grafts on your palms and lower arms. They expect– with the right physiotherapy… about 60% of your former mobility should return with time. But it is a complicated matter, burns like the ones you suffered, often come with an endless list of complications-“

Dick stopped listening when Bruce started listing off the numerous ways in which this shitty situation could get even worse. There was a sour flavor on the back of his tongue, and Dick had to force himself to breathe through the nausea.

His hands… burned.

Burned bad enough to need grafts. Burned bad enough that even in the best possible scenario, Dick would never fly like he used to. Maybe, with time, he could find ways to circumvent what had happened… but right now, all Dick could see was another part of his personality – another part of his soul, his home, his family – going up in flames.

He had lost more than just his childhood in the flames – he had also lost his future.

Who was Dick Grayson without the trapeze? Who was Dick Grayson without the ability to fly? Who was Dick Grayson without the pieces of his parents he had always carried with him?

Who was he supposed to be?

He didn’t cry, not even when Amy stroked his arm, and Bruce ruffled his hair. He didn’t cry, when Bruce excused himself to take a call, and Amy sat down next to him, tears of her own streaming down her face.

He didn’t cry.

If he cried, it would be real. If he cried, he would have to deal. If he cried, he would have to face this new reality.

But… if he only stared and stared and stared…. If he let the hollowness take him… maybe he would wake up one day and the world would be okay again. Maybe he would blink, and everything would be alright.

He couldn’t feel his hands – they were very numb from all the drugs. But now Dick had to wonder… what if they were numb because the nerve damage was that extensive? What if they were numb because Dick would never touch something again and actually feel it?

He would never feel the rough texture of a trapeze under his palms again, nor would he feel the rubbery pressure of his Nightwing gloves. He wouldn’t feel the soft wisps of hair decorating Barbara’s body, and he wouldn’t feel the clicks of a lock Nightwing was cracking.

He wouldn’t…

And now the tears came.

Big, ugly sobs stifled by the oxygen mask and Dick’s own shame. Big, heaving cries for help nobody but Amy could hear.

He cried for his home. For the circus and the people that had been his family. He cried for Zitka and her bravery. Haly and his endurance. Raya and her laughter. He cried for his parents – for the legacy he had lost, the memories that would vanish without the constant reminder of chalk and air.

But most of all he cried for himself.

Because who was Dick Grayson supposed to be if he couldn’t even fly?

**Author's Note:**

> Comments, Kudos and Bookmarks keep an author heart happy!! <3


End file.
